Leading U.S. health expert urging cautious approach

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Monday that it's too early to say the swine-flu threat is receding, even though there are some signs the outbreak may not be as serious as originally feared.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the outbreak could die down with warmer weather only to roar back during fall flu season. And she said the public shouldn't be alarmed if the World Health Organization declares that the new virus has officially begun a pandemic, meaning it has spread pretty much globally.

That word describes "geography, not severity" and thus wouldn't change U.S. steps to stem infections that have been confirmed in more than 380 people in more than half the states, she said.

Another top U.S. health official said "there are encouraging signs" of a leveling off in the severity of the threat, but added that it's still too early to declare the problem under control.

"I'm not ready to say that yet," Dr. Richard Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said when asked about indications by Mexican health authorities that the disease has peaked there.

"What we're seeing is an illness that looks very much like seasonal flu. But we're not seeing the type of severe disease that we were worrying about," Besser told network television interviewers. He noted that roughly 36,000 people die each year in this country from the winter flu, so it's still a serious matter.

More than 380 cases of swine-flu virus have been confirmed in 36 states so far, according to a count by The Associated Press.

"We are by no means out of the woods," Besser said. "In previous pandemics, there have been waves and you don't know what this virus is going to do."

U.S. confirmed cases from the CDC or states: New York, 90; Texas, 43; California, 69; Massachusetts, 34; Delaware, 20; Arizona, 18; Oregon, 17; South Carolina, 15; Illinois, nine; Colorado, Louisiana, and New Jersey, seven; Florida, five; Alabama and Maryland, four; Indiana, New Mexico, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin, three; Connecticut, Kansas and Michigan, two; and one each in Nebraska, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Idaho and Utah.

There has been one death in the United States, a toddler who succumbed to the disease after he was brought to this country from Mexico.

Besser said health authorities also are concerned about indications that the flu had so far struck the young more heavily than older people, and that there still may be deaths from it.